Well, hive, I think it’s about that time. And of course, I have to say goodbye in the only way that someone named Mrs. Wizard should:

It’s been almost a year since I was introduced here, and I never imagined how rewarding blogging here would be. I remember the day I got my acceptance email, tumbling out of bed at 5:00 AM and running downstairs to tell Mr. Wiz, “I got accepted to blog for Weddingbee!!” I was so utterly thrilled, but I had no idea just what I was in for. I thought I would spend the next handful of months telling people about our wedding, recap it when it was over, and then peace out.

The end of our reception was kind of an emotional roller coaster, so buckle in, hive. A little while after our little Cee Lo induced dance-fest, I looked around the reception room and realized that it was really just immediate family left. Our photographers approached us and I knew what was coming: they were leaving too. It wasn’t even 9:00 PM yet—the sun was just setting!—and our reception was basically over.

So there I was, watching the sun set on my wedding day while parents, aunts and uncles, and, of all people, my groom, tore down the day that was 12 months in the making. The music was turned off. The tablecloths were rolled up off the tables. The candles were blown out. The icicle lights were unplugged and taken down. The cake was boxed up. All of the details I had planned to perfection were gone in an instant, and we were alone in an echo-y, generic banquet room. I sunk into a chair at a table with MOH Lefty and Wizard Aunt and she asked me, “Are you sad?”

I tried to shrug it off but I could feel the dam breaking. “Yeah”¦a little”¦” That was all it took to bring on the deluge. I collapsed into Lefty’s shoulder and sobbed. It sounds so shallow and superficial and priorities-in-the-wrong-place, but let’s be real: It’s a little bit upsetting for a bride to see her wedding day disassembled around her earlier than planned. Especially because at that moment I was feeling embarrassed, wondering what I did so wrong as a host that caused the mass exeunt practically the moment guests had finished their cupcakes.

Ack! I can’t believe I’ve been MIA for so long, but Mr. Wiz and I have been busy lately. I was flat-on-my-back sick with bronchitis for over a week, then Christmas happened, and in the midst of all that, we bought a house! There was a lot of paperwork to do and a lot of rigmarole to deal with in the past few weeks, but all that’s settled now and from here it’s just a (hopefully) smooth ride until closing. We are so excited!

Anyway, back to recaps. While many of our guests had begun trickling out and the night was winding down (at, like, 7:30 PM, mind you), there was one song that, surprisingly, got the dance floor full. It wasn’t “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch.” It wasn’t “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles).” It wasn’t “Thriller.” It wasn’t even “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

It was”¦”Forget You” by Cee Lo Green. I know, right? How random is that? Of all the classic dance-to-this-at-a-wedding songs for which people stayed firmly planted in their seats, Cee Lo got them up and moving. (Of course, we chose to play the family-friendly version of this song!) So despite the dance floor being so empty I think I might have seen a few tumbleweeds blow through, we did get one song’s worth of funny dance pictures.

After our first dance, B took to the mic again and opened up the dance floor to everyone. But after the first song or two, it was pretty much pathetically empty. Seeing the complete lack of party and seeing us making fools of ourselves trying to get people to dance with us, our photographers quickly swept us away again for a little photo session outside in the “golden hour” of sunset.

Right after cutting our cake (and after I managed to gag mine down), we made our way to the dance floor for our first dance as husband and wife.

This is always one of my favorite moments of a wedding reception. My someday-imaginary-first-dance is one of the few wedding-related things I daydreamed about since I was a little girl. I can remember being younger than 10 years old and proclaiming to my aunt in the car one day that “Truly, Madly, Deeply” by Savage Garden was going to be my first dance song at my wedding, and she promised she’d hold me to it. Luckily she broke that promise, and we were able to select a better song.

We stepped onto the dance floor, pulled each other close, and began our dance.

Anyone who has an Italian grandma has probably heard those words shouted over a family meal at least once in their lives. Mangia, mangia! Eat, eat!

And eat is exactly what we did. I know there’s this big mythos around whether or not the bride and groom will get to sit down to eat on their wedding day, but honestly, we had no problems with it. B let the head table go through the buffet line first, and guest tables went two at a time after that, so everyone else was eating at the same time we were. We were asked to pose for the occasional picture”¦

Around 5:20 our phototime wrapped up, my dress got bustled while standing in the pavillion, and it was the moment of truth: time to enter our reception for the first time and see if all the issues of the previous day had been resolved. Would there be water for the guests? Ice? Would the beer we’d spent $200 on be cold—or even be served at all? Where would the appetizers be?

As we lined up in the foyer and hairdresser-now-emcee B (she’s a woman of many talents!) got everyone’s attention to announce our entrance, I tried to peek in to see what the scene looked like, but I couldn’t see much because we were trying to hide in the corner until we were announced.

B introduced MOH Lefty and Best Man D, and they walked in to cheers and took their seats at the head table.

*

Next it was our turn. Remember how I said earlier that I have a mortal fear of showing emotion in front of people? This is one of the times of the day where I regret that the most, because I wish we had done some kind of cheering-bouquet-raising-fist-pumping-grinning-dancing entrance—because that’s what I felt like on the inside. But when B announced us and our guests stood up to cheer us in, this is what I looked like:

Our post-ceremony portrait session produced plenty of lovely photos, but it wasn’t without some shenanigans as well. Mr. Wiz and I can rarely keep a straight face at the best of times, let alone when a camera is snapping away at us as we’re flying on the high of being newly-minted Mr. and Mrs.!